The Natural Energy Electric Vehicles (NEEV) story
The petrol crisis was in full swing and as I’m an electrical fitter I thought that an electric car would be the ideal thing to have
Looking around the village I soon located an old Lancaster bombers generator a massive 150 amp machine that would make an ideal motor.
A further search located an old Austin 10 chassis and after removing the motor etc I installed the new electric motor.
The batteries were a problem as I had no idea of how many but a few calculations and tests with some scrap batteries and some data from the battery makers I was able to assemble some 90 volts lead acid batteries..
The great day came as the batteries arrived and I worked all night assembling them in the back of the car.
Now this car was built in the basement of our house and this night it was out side under the clothes line with a fluorescent tube hung from the line above the car.
2 am and all the batteries were set up and the wiring done.
I touched the accelerator and at that point all hell let loose as the car surged forward and omg the clothes line post.
Well there was a crashing sound as the florescent tubes fell the clothes line crashed and the house shook as the other end of the line? came adrift.
A sleepy voice from the wife asked from the top bed room what are you doing or some thing more explicit, and so to bed.
The next day I had to get the car up the steep bank and past the garden terrace and on to the drive some 40 feet above. So I moved the car up to the terraced bank of the garden and tried the accelerator again wanting to get it as close to the terrace as possible and then jack the car up and onto the garden.
Well electric cars I find out have heaps of power at zero speed and in a flash the dam car rose above the 2 foot terrace and climbed easily onto the garden.
Undeterred I planted the foot and over the garden up the concrete steps and onto the drive
So much for the first drive in an electric car.
I used it every day then to go to work some 5 miles away and eventually started to design a faster car.
My goal was to break the world speed record at 110 miles per hour and I was about half way through the chassis of a super stream lined car where i was to lay between the front-rear wheels with batteries all over the car.
a mobile battery. and the news came the? world record had risen to 170 miles per hour.
O dear a few calculations and a look at a power graph that seemed to go through the roof and the idea was abandoned.
Oh well a good sports car was in the goal now.
A Holden rear window and a lot of steel tube and a vw rear plus a morris minor front suspension and the car took shape in a few months.
It look really good and when the 1500 lbs of battery were installed in it custom built battery box it was ready to go.
I had invented a devilish switch gear it weighed some 3 pounds and was so tricky it took me 2 weeks to figure it out.
it would in first position make 3 banks of batteries in parallel and 36 volts. Then 2nd position it would give me 2 banks of 72 volts.
Then in the final position it would give a massive 144 volts to the 36 volt 150 amp motor.
Well the day came to try it out this time I took it to the open road on the 36 volts stage and every thing seemed ok. Just as I got to a good long straight bit of road I was passed by a group of motor bikes. So I set the switch on full power. Wow the amp meter shot?
full scale past the 1000 amp scale The car shot forward and I hung on like grim death as I knew that to open the switch at that current would be like setting off a bomb in the car.
The speed rose rapidly to over 70 mph? and soon the motor cycles were appearing in the distance.
They did not hear me coming and as I swished past they certainly would not have heard me go.
A mile or so later at full speed the current dropped enough for me to open the switch and drive at a more sedate speed.
And I rested as the cycles caught up and passed again.
I improved the car over the next few months and as the batteries started to wear down I installed a v w motor on the rear as well as an electric motor to make it a hybrid car.
In the mornings I was able to drive quietly up the drive and down the hill and once out on the open road I would engage the clutch and the petrol motor would take over the work..
This enabled me to go great distances and as the petrol tank was small I often ran out of petrol between garages so just cruised on to the next garage on the batteries.
I would comment to the station operator that I had run out of petrol some miles back. When asked well how did you get here I would point to the huge electric motor and 1500 lbs of batteries and say, ”well I just used the starter motor.”
When on a hill and the petrol motor was finding it a bit tough the electric motor would be used to help, much easier than changing gears all the time.
On the down hills the petrol motor would be shut down and the batteries? charged in stead of using the brakes.
One day while cruising in Auckland the muffler came adrift and? a police car seemed to be taking some notice of me so I switched to electrics and even though the cops could see the v w motor was stopped I was able to do a small wheelie up queen street as quiet as a mouse and with the motor not going.
in all i did some 5000 km in this car
and during construction
one of the most valuable books i had was
'racing sports car design
by michael costin and david phipps'
it has all the basic design parameters for car design
At this point a friend as crazy as me joined forces and we decided to make a cycle car with a motor on it.
A few days later we were both pedaling the car around the local park and decided to see how much current we could get from a car generator attached to the chain drive.
Well with both of us pedaling we managed a mere 6 amps so that idea? was scrapped
This cycle car evolved into our lovely 2 seater gull winged car.
First we removed the front of the chassis and put decent wheels on it and then re built the rear of the chassis? so just on inch of the original frame remained.
The car was a mass of innovation with gull wing doors that allowed use to walk into the low slung car and sit down
The steering wheel folded up to the window screen and acted as the hand brake as well as the power disconnect. So sitting down and dragging the wheel towards you was all that was needed to get going.
The front suspension was a very simple pendulum sort of suspension that was very effective in that it would bank the car like a motor bike when turning. To this date no one has tumbled to its design and I am not about to tell any one ether.
The rear wheels had individual motors and gears and the body was a simple flat panel alloy sheets that looked as modern today as it was then.
the gull winged commuter car
At this point we designed a new proto type and at the point of a detailed drawing stage we decided to form a company with a financier and make electric vehicles.
The drawings were scrapped and a design for an electric truck was sketched out.
25 years later I was astounded to see the exact shape and design of petrol car driving past matching the drawings I had made 25 years long ago.
At this point we shifted to Christchurch to build the truck in a workshop there? the two of us started the project and 12 hour days some times and a lot of designing on the run we had a finished electric truck on show in Wellington in just 6 weeks.
A record for a production vehicle as it took 7 weeks for ford and Chrysler to make the jeep( the present world record)
We went on to produce some 8 more trucks and then went broke and the company collapsed into receivership as the price of petrol dropped rapidly and petrol cars were no longer sold only if the had a full tank of petrol.
the neev truck
the neev truck
this is no 1 neev truck in the musem at yaldhurst musem
christchurch new zealand
prior to all this a friend and i converted a Le Velocette bike to electric power
we used a gardner diesel 100 hp marine motors starter motor.
this very powerfull starter motor had a shunt winding as well as a series winding
so with a shaft drive and the gearbox intact we plugged the motor in and added 4 6volt batteries to the carrier.
performance was fantastic as we also used a power boost to the shunt windings.
this doubled the available torque to the shaft and the acceleration in bottom gear was better than our friends 600 cc motor bike -- up to the 40 mph
tags, electric sports car,hybrid sports car,early history of electric cars,new zealand electric car,gull wing electric car,electric motor bike,NEEV, amature electric car,diy electric car,gull wing commutor,
